Patterico's Pontifications

1/6/2009

Biden: Obama Transition Team Should Have Consulted Senate About Panetta

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 9:15 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

From the Washington Post, Joe Biden says Obama’s transition team should have consulted with Senate intelligence officials before announcing the appointment of Leon Panetta as CIA Director:

“Vice-president-elect Joseph Biden admitted today the Obama transition team made a “mistake” in not notifying top Senate officials of the selection of Leon Panetta as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, defending the former Clinton White House chief of staff as a nominee would take the CIA on “new path.”

Biden told reporters in the Capitol that the Senate Intelligence Committee should have been consulted in advance of the Panetta nomination, which resulted in criticism from the panel’s top Democrats. The incoming chair, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and outgoing chairman, Sen. John “Jay” Rockefeller III (D-W. Va.), questioned the Panetta selection because of his lack of experience in the intelligence community.”

The Obama people really should keep Biden in the loop, at least until after the Inauguration. It looks bad when Biden is more critical of Obama than MSNBC. Of course, that isn’t hard to do.

— DRJ

40 Responses to “Biden: Obama Transition Team Should Have Consulted Senate About Panetta”

  1. A failed community organizer does not know how to work with Congress. Anybody surprised?

    Perfect Sense (9d1b08)

  2. I worked for congress a few years ago, and Bush 43 had tons of trouble with house republicans that are nowhere near the assholes the democrats are going to be.

    Obama has made some fairly good choices lately in staff, but he still has to lead these people, and he simply isn’t ready for the job. No one should expect this administration to succeed. Hope? Sure. expect? Never.

    Joco (4cdfb7)

  3. How can Baracky expect to work with the RACISTS in the Senate that denied a seat to Roland Burris?

    JD (457b76)

  4. Biden is Obama’s gift that keeps giving, to the Republicans. I thought they were trying to keep him under wraps.

    Speaking of that, where’s Rahmbo? Is he still in Africa? There’s a lot going on here that could use his attention. Why hasn’t he been out there in front on some of these Obama related stories?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  5. Considering how his predecessors have done, maybe it’s a good thing Panetta doesn’t have their experience.

    Alan Kellogg (e4d258)

  6. Kellogg, in my view the CIA is doing a very good job. We have not been attacked since 9/11, thanks greatly to our intelligence programs and reforms made to them.

    But your point stands that the CIA has historically screwed up many things, including WMDs in Iraq, 9/11, the fall of the USSR, etc etc. But it’s working right now, and that needs to be preserved. I don’t think Panetta will break it, though.

    Joco (4cdfb7)

  7. The problem is not so much the intelligence product that the CIA is delivering, but the policy challenges by the groups within the intelligence community (CIA, NSA, DIA, State, etc.) that are being made against the policies of the United States Government as formulated by the elected leadership of the Executive Branch.

    It is an age-old problem of transient political leadership vs the permanent bureaucracy, and the concept of “Well, we just don’t do that here…”.

    George Will once posited that what a President needed to get a grip on the bureaucracy was the authority to select one bureaucrat each year for public execution on the South Lawn of the White House.

    Sort of like Samuel Johnson’s comment about focusing the mind…

    AD (4f3c82)

  8. How many Clinton employees are left, anyway?

    Are they going to bring Monica back for a second chance to complete her internship?

    Joco (4cdfb7)

  9. At the end of every administration, particularly eight-year ones, large numbers of political appointees finagle themselves into permanent civil-service positions so they don’t have to leave.
    They tend to be around for a while, quite a few staying until full retirement.
    I’m sure there are still thousands left over from the Clinton years, and they aren’t clerk-typists.

    AD (4f3c82)

  10. MSNBC critical? Rachel Maddow began her show tonight by throwing Feinstein and Rockefeller under the bus for daring to question the wisdom of The Chosen One!

    Icy Texan (b7d162)

  11. Very interesting post. Biden was selected for the VP spot supposedly because he brought a wealth of foreign policy expertise (snicker, snicker) to the ticket, but I think also because he was a respected (snicker, snicker) old Washington hand who would help Obama work with Congress. Based upon his latest verbal outburst, it seems that Biden is going to have to learn that he is now part of the Obama Administration and not the United States Senate, and he will have to couch his public utterances accordingly.

    Aw, who am I kidding? Let’s let Joe be Joe. It will be the one bit of comedy relief from what promises to be a dreary four years.

    JVW (bff0a4)

  12. The trouble with Joe Biden is that he keeps committing Kinsley gaffes.

    He’s going to upset a lot of True Believers.†

    Mike G in Corvallis (70f47e)

  13. (Whoops. That “†” symbol was just a randomly character inserted by my antique laptop. Nothing religious implied.)p

    Mike G in Corvallis (70f47e)

  14. The gaffes will keep coming for a while. Obama is not ready to be the mayor of Wasilla, let alone president, so it will be a while until the screwups stop appearing. That doesn’t mean they will stop; just that Rahm will figure out how to keep them out of the papers.

    The good news is that the bear market may be at bottom. This may have been a very steep but short bear. Oil is starting to rise again and gold has never dropped in spite of the evidence of deflation. Now if we could just figure out a way to keep Obama from carrying out his plans fro the economy, we might see an early recovery.

    I’m praying for more gaffes. I’m not that confident of prayers being answered but I think the odds are better here.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  15. This is shaping up to be an interesting power struggle. On one side there’s Barack Obama, an empty suit President-elect with no Executive experience what so ever. On the other side, 465 professional politicians all clamoring to become more equal pigs.

    Weak Presidency and Strong Congress anyone?

    SeniorD (50f696)

  16. This also relates to the Burris threads. From Steve Colbert, “They moved the only black Senator [Barack Obama] out to a separate but equal position”.

    nk (ce2a15)

  17. What else did they expect from Slo – Joe? Anyone who’s had to suffer through his interminable speeches on the Sunday morning news talkers knows full well that you cannot stop him, only try to contain him. Along with Schumer, they both give Foghorn Leghorn a good run for the money.

    Dmac (eb0dd0)

  18. Ah say, son – you’re about as sharp as a pound of wet leather.

    Dmac (eb0dd0)

  19. Do Obama and Biden, not to mention the Obama nation, have their feathers numbered for just such an emergency?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  20. I think Slow Joe is gonna be real entertaining for the next four years. Unless he gets dumped.

    mojo (8096f2)

  21. Slow Joe cannot be dumped, only impeached now. And I don’t see that happening.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  22. Dmac, if Biden is Foghorn Leghorn (I won’t be able to see him speechify without thinking about the “doo-dah” song from the cartoons), who is the Chickenhawk?

    Eric Blair (3e2520)

  23. Biden seems to be emerging as Obama’s primary mechanism to acknowledge his goofs, which only seems appropriate given Biden’s manifest goofiness. (Previous example: the ad claiming McCain didn’t know how to operate a computer.)

    sierra (4be1ff)

  24. My question is: why did Joe Biden take his Senate seat in the first place? Governor Ruth Ann Minner has already appointed his replacement, someone who is an old aide to Senator Biden and apparently the placeholder he wanted while they wait for Beau Biden to get back from Iraq. By staying in the Senate, Mr Biden just insured that his replacement will have less seniority than the incoming freshmen (other than the senators from Illinois and Minnesota), so he actually hurt his home state by staying in the Senate; he could have resigned before the lame duck session and gotten his replacement more seniority than the freshmen, and aided his home state, yet Mr Biden stayed in office but skipped work during the lame duck session.

    I know that Mr Biden isn’t the wealthiest man in the Senate, but was it just that he needed the money?

    The annoyed Dana (3e4784)

  25. Some and mirrors to lead up to the fall of the American dollar and the Rise of the Amero.

    Joe (c44e0a)

  26. Smoke and mirrors to lead up to the fall of the American dollar and the rise of the Amero? Suggestive of the Euro?

    While I suggest such a possible avenue to the world-wide “credit” as swiped from the chip in your hand or forehead, I surely hope this is not within the next 20 years. I also hope this was not your suggestion.

    Scary stuff, that.

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  27. Hi Republicans. It’s not a bad thing to be critical of people in your own party. Maybe you should try it sometime if you ever find yourselves in charge again?

    Sarlberid (b989f8)

  28. #28
    straw man
    or was that ad hominem?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  29. It’s not a bad thing to be critical of people in your own party.

    Amazing. It is almost as if you have never listened to a single thing we’re ever said about Bush’s “killing free market to save free market” or McCain.

    But, considering you basically just came here and blindly spouted that load of crap, I guess actual honest discussion is not what you came here for.

    Also, nice projection. I’ve heard little to no issues with Obama on any real scale. Hell, even the media is now trying to short-sell America on what Obama can accomplish, departing from the “All will be healed once the One is in power” canard.

    Scott Jacobs (a1c284)

  30. “Hi Republicans. It’s not a bad thing to be critical of people in your own party. Maybe you should try it sometime if you ever find yourselves in charge again?”

    Sarlberid – Does the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination ring a bell, moron or defeating McCain and Bush’s immigration amnesty plan?

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  31. Sarlberid – do you ever actually bother to pay attention to current affairs news? At all?

    SPQR (72771e)

  32. 28, Hey, troll, why don’t you try it publically within the Democrat party? I want to see how much of a “Union Education” you get.

    PCD (7fe637)

  33. Sarlberid – Does the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination ring a bell, moron or defeating McCain and Bush’s immigration amnesty plan?

    Ooh yeah, way to go. You stopped Harriet Miers. Pointless war, random torture, and ignoring the 4th amendment got the A-O-K, but Miers couldn’t be tolerated. What an accomplishment.

    Sarlberid (b989f8)

  34. Sarlberid – do you ever actually bother to pay attention to current affairs news? At all?

    Sure, what part am I supposed to be paying attention to?

    Sarlberid (b989f8)

  35. Sarlberid, it is obvious you support a large number of people who wish to trash the first and second amendments to the US Constitution. Can you state your support of those individuals while speaking out against their actions to infringe our first and second amendment rights? Or can you only shotgun baseless claims against conservatives and ignore the ones quickly beaten out of the air?

    John Hitchcock (fb941d)

  36. Pointless war, random torture, and ignoring the 4th amendment got the A-O-K

    Wow, what a pack of straw men.

    Rob Crawford (b5d1c2)

  37. Ooh yeah, way to go. You stopped… Pointless war,

    Right because with a coming nuclear Iran, tightening world oil supply, Russian machinations in the middle east, and a never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how could the Mother Theresa of Baghdad have possibly made things any more explosive?

    liontooth (0edfdb)

  38. but Miers couldn’t be tolerated. What an accomplishment.
    What couldn’t be tolerated was another 9/11. And the results? Mission Accomplished.

    Did someone say “random torture”?
    Congressional Democrats knew alot, and did nothing to stop it!

    liontooth (0edfdb)


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